History Recap / AgentsOfSHIELDS3E2PurposeInTheMachine

* CardboardPrison: Discussed and Played With. Randolph's prison is very good for keeping human prisoners, but as Bobbi notes, a superstrong Asgardian like Randolph could easily break out anytime, which he soon demonstrates.

* PlayAlongPrisoner: Professor Randolph could easily escape prison, but he likes how accommodating Norway's prisons are and it's in his best interests not to draw attention when aliens are under such scrutiny these days. When he is convinced to leave, [[SuperStrength he casually rips the entire cell door off its hinges]

* GoThroughMe: Fitz threatens this when Professor Randolph wants the portal destroyed. Randolph points out that he easily could, but is wary enough of Coulson and Bobbi that he won't try. Plus, he's not so heartless as to deny them a chance to save Simmons.

* PlayAlongPrisoner: Professor Randolph could easily escape prison, but he likes how accommodating Norway's prisons are and it's in his best interests not to draw attention when aliens are under such scrutiny these days. When he is convinced to leave, he casually rips the entire cell door off.

* SigilSpam: The Hebrew word for "Death", seen last episode, is used in the castle to mark secret passages and other dangerous places. Lampshaded when Coulson admits to having the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo removed from his vehicles because it draws too much attention, only for Bobbi to point out he didn't do it for their jets. Coulson admits he couldn't help himself.
** Ward has continued HYDRA's tendency to do this as well; possible foreshadowing to the fact that the Maveth room and the portal were the ancient, original purpose of the organization known as HYDRA.

* BookEnds: Of a sort. Last season started with Fitz severely traumatized and recovering. Now it's Jemma.

* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: Hunter leaves the team to get started on the hunt for Ward, and talks May into joining him. Coulson tells Hunter to make sure Ward dies.

* ChekhovsGunman: The explorer forced to go through the portal at the beginning of the episode. We don't see his ultimate fate until 3 episodes later. [[spoiler:His sword and wine are close to his body when Simmons eventually finds him, and his sextant is used to predict where the portal will show up next.]]

* ChekhovsGunman: The explorer forced to go through the portal at the beginning of the episode. We don't see his ultimate fate until 3 episodes later. His sword and wine are close to his body when Simmons eventually finds him, and his sextant is used to predict where the portal will show up next.

** She might also use the term as a general term for all forms of radiometric dating, as people do, because she doesn't know which exact isotopes were actually used to get to the final date.

* DrawingStraws: The opening scene is a mid-19th century research group drawing lots (In this case, colored stones from a sack rather than literal straws) to see who will go into the Monolith to see what's on the other side.

* HollywoodScience: Carbon dating can only date organic substances (such as wood and bone) back to 50,000 years or so. It cannot date inorganic substances (like silicon dioxide) back to 5 billion years or so. Admittedly, it's Bobby who uses the term "carbon dating", so perhaps it's her mistake.

* RichIdiotWithNoDayJob: Werner Von Strucker was coasting through life living on the money his father made as a HYDRA leader until Ward came along.

* SecretTestOfCharacter: Ward has Werner von Strucker subjected to brutal interrogation in an attempt to force the turning over of the entire von Strucker family fortune. Werner eventually fights back and subdues his interrogator, which Ward reveals was what he'd hoped would happen because it proved that Werner was worthy to be in Hydra.

* SinkOrSwimMentor: Ward is this to Werner Von Strucker, getting him to man up by putting his life in danger.

* WhyDontYouJustShootHim: Averted with Ward as soon as one guy manages to land a punch at him.
* XanatosGambit: Ward's torture treatment of Werner Von Strucker. If Strucker passes his test, then he gets a new student to mold into a proper HYDRA leader. If Strucker fails, then it would be culling out the weak and he'd be several million dollars richer thanks to the kid's bank passwords.

* ChekhovsGun: The flare fired into the portal. Simmons did see it and it lead her to where Fitz would eventually rescue her.

* ChekhovsGunman: The explorer forced to go through the portal at the beginning of the episode. We don't see his ultimate fate until 3 episodes later. His sword and wine are close to his body when Simmons eventually finds him.

* IJustWantToBeNormal: May tells her dad she wants to have a normal life, but he points out that she's always carrying a gun or looking over her shoulder expecting the worse.

* ChekhovsGunman: The explorer forced to go through the portal at the beginning of the episode. We don't see his ultimate fate 3 episodes later. His sword and wine are close to his body when Simmons eventually finds him.

** Professor Randolph refers to [[Film/AvengersAgeOfUltron cities falling from the sky and Asgardian tolerance to alcohol]].

* MadeOfIron: Werner Von Strucker does not easily crack under torture.

* OverlordJr: We're introduced to Wolfgang von Strucker's son, Werner. And while he first appears as a RichIdiotWithNoDayJob, Ward is able to peel away his spoiled rich kid shell to reveal the potential HYDRA leader he was born to be.

-->'''Randolph:''' Why come to me? I'm no interstellar travel expert. I've never even studied gravitational lensing or zero-point energy energy fields or quantum-harmonic oscillation theory.\\

* TakeMyHand: Fitz does this to save Simmons.

* XanatosGambit: Ward's treatment of Werner Von Strucker. If Strucker passes his test, he gets a new student to mold into a proper HYDRA leader. If he fails, then it would be culling out the weak and he'd be several million dollars richer.

* HollywoodScience: Carbon dating can only date organic substances (such as wood and bone) back to 50,000 years or so. It cannot date inorganic substances (like silicon dioxide) back to 5 billion years or so.

* DrawingStraws: The opening scene is a mid-19th century research group drawing lots to see who will go into the Monolith to see what's on the other side.

* ArtisticLicenseGeology: Fitz carbon dates a sample of alien sand and determines that it's older than Earth by a billion years. This has several problems. First, carbon dating isn't useful beyond around 30,000 years. Second, as it's from an alien planet, Fitz has no means to determine if the carbon content on that planet is the same as Earth. Third, the sand is made of silica, which isn't carbon.

* HollywoodScience: Carbon Dating can only date organic substances (such as wood and bone) back to 50,000 years or so. It cannot date inorganic substances (like silicon dioxide) back to 5 billion years or so.

* ActorAllusion: Randolph refers to Bobbi as an 'Amazon'. [[Series/WonderWoman2011Pilot Interesting choice of words]].

* SuscpiciouslySpecificDenial: Randolph has zero intention of seeing any portal except to destroy it. He says the following: